HOW KARO VAN TONDER FOUND HER WAY BACK TO HERSELF

Africa's fastest woman on water has her sights set on the next world speed record in windsurfing. She's also forging ahead through trauma.

- Debbie Hathway

Karo van Tonder laughs with her whole body. Her head tilts back, her shoulders loosen, and for a moment everything around her seems lighter — open, carefree, spontaneous.

She has the look of someone made for sun and sea: long blonde hair, blue eyes, a broad smile, and that athletic, wind-burnished ease that comes from a lot of time spent outdoors. In photographs, she often flashes the same irreverent hand sign: thumb and little finger raised; playful, cheeky, defiant.

There is a surfer-girl freedom about her, a great energy that captivates you quickly.

And that's what makes the contrast so painful. In May 2021, much of that light was almost extinguished. It was a week before entries closed for the Lüderitz Speed Challenge, which is an official Speed Record Chase for Windsurfers and Kitesurfers approved by the World Sailing Speed Record Council.

Karo is one of South Africa's standout windsurfing athletes — a speed specialist who has risen to the highest world rankings of the sport. Current Africa speed-record holder and the fifth-fastest in the world among women, she is strong, striking and visibly resilient. But behind the public persona is a woman who's had to claw her way back from rape, trauma, fear, insomnia and the slow, punishing work of trying to feel safe in her own body again.

The rape, she explains, was preceded by months of manipulation and intimidation by someone in her inner circle. He had been positioned as a key figure in her career; someone who would help her secure sponsorships, handle proposals and open doors in a male-dominated sport where funding can determine everything. ‘It was a long buildup,’ she says. ‘A buildup of fear.’